[MD] Emotions

[Steven Peterson]

Hi John,


On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 12:28 AM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Steven Peterson <peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> Fear and anger are patterns that a human animal participates in
>> without regard to any social context. A human living in the wild
>> devoid of any human contact would still participate in these patterns.
>>
>
> You postulate a ridiculous scenario.  There's no such thing as a human
> without social context.  You might be able to construct such a thing as a
> manipulated experiment, but then it wouldn't be an experiment upon a real
> human.  Real humans come from a society and even when they are alone in the
> woods, they carry a society in their heads.  The think in socially bound
> language, they are nurtured into being by social relationships and if there
> are absolutely no possiblities of relation to other, they'll paint a
> volleyball like a head and hold conversations with that.

This is not a ridiculaous scenario. Have you heard of a feral child?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

Do you think that such children living in the wild being raised by
wolves or something would not experience fear? Do you think that
wolves and other mammals do not experience fear?

Best,
Steve